President Donald Trump‘s administration filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles on Monday, claiming the city’s policy of non-cooperation with immigration authorities amounted to “discrimination.”
The lawsuit targets a “sanctuary city” ordinance on the books in the Southern California megalopolis, saying that the law violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The suit named Mayor Karen Bass and the entire Los Angeles City Council as defendants.
“Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said of the lawsuit in a statement to Fox News. “Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level – it ends under President Trump.”
The argument against small government from the Republican admin is nothing new, echoing Department of Justice lawsuits against other cities with “sanctuary” laws. The Los Angeles lawsuit did make the interesting claim that such laws “discriminate” against agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“The Los Angeles Ordinance and other policies intentionally discriminate against the Federal Government by treating federal immigration authorities differently than other law enforcement agents through access restrictions both to property and to individual detainees, by prohibiting contractors and sub-contractors from providing information, and by disfavoring federal criminal laws that the City of Los Angeles has decided not to comply with,” the lawsuit states. “The Supremacy Clause prohibits the City of Los Angeles and its officials from singling out the Federal Government for adverse treatment — as the challenged law and policies do — thereby discriminating against the Federal Government.”
Bass has not responded to the lawsuit directly. Both Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom did comment on one knock-on effect of the showdown between the federal government and the city of Los Angeles. They noted that the Trump administration’s decision to deploy the California National Guard in the city, against the wishes of Newsom, has led to the state being woefully short of firefighters.
“Shocking. Turns out the Trump administration’s decision to needlessly deploy soldiers in L.A. instead of preparing for actual emergencies was as reckless and performative as it was predictable,” Bass wrote on X.
“It’s peak wildfire season, and Trump’s militarization of LA has [California National Guard] firefighting crews operating at just 40% capacity,” Newsom shared on social media.
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